Maybe I got's Malaria?

I haven’t really been feeling that great for the past couple days. Yesterday I had a really bad stomach ache and today I woke up with a super sore throat, a head ache and a stomach ache. I haven’t really been able to do a whole lot so I have been working on my lesson plans since I have stayed inside a bit.

It is absolutely POURING outside as I write this, but the power is staying on so far which is a good thing. Doesn’t usually do that. Last night it went out for a few hours.

I finally decided to tell Auntie Joe that I wasn’t feeling well so that she didn’t think I was just sitting inside for nothing. I don’t really like to worry her and she definitely gets worried over the slightest little thing. She said that I might have Malaria, which I know I don’t. They think everything is Malaria here. She thinks that I have a lot of mosquito bites because I have a lot of pimples on my face and so Malaria is definitely an option. She thinks I should take one of my Malaria pills as medicine just in case. She also wants me to gargle TCP. That’s the same antiseptic that I put on my scalp to help the itching from my braids to go down. I am NOT putting that in my mouth.

So, cross your fingers that I don’t have Malaria and that I’m just sick. I have taken my Malaria pill every single day and Petra has forgotten more than once and has SO many more mosquito bites than me so if I get Malaria and she doesn’t, I will NOT be impressed. Plus I hear it sucks so I just don’t want to go down that road.

Auntie Mary (that is what we have started to call our lovely prof automatically now, since everyone here refers to her as that), your mom visited us today!!! She came as a surprise since she was in Asamank anyway to go and check out the school! She brought us PIZZA FROM THE ACCRA MALL! TWO OF THEM!!! That was such a nice surprise.

Mrs. Apea sounds exactly like our professor, laughs like her, is beautiful like her. Oh my, it was such a nice visit! The minute she walked into the house, I thought Mary had surprised us and came to visit early!

Since I haven’t been feeling that great, I don’t really have a whole lot to talk about. Little Isaac from across the street came and chatted with me for a little while when I was sitting with Yaa outside the store. He is adorable and still calls us Melissa sometimes. (Melissa, he really misses you!)

Ernestina, one of the ladies in my class told me I was getting fat again on Wednesday. What else is new? I finally decided to ask her what made her think I was getting fat, and instead of pointing to my stomach  like I thought she would, she told me my face and my arms were getting fat and that it looked sooo nice. Great, a few more body parts that are growing that I hadn’t noticed yet. SELF confidence booster right there. Haha. At least she thinks I’m beautiful.

My skin got worse while we were on our week vacation since I didn’t lug my huge bottle of face cleaner along and Auntie Joe was quick to point it out. She asked me if lots of bugs had “eaten my face in the night time” and I politely smiled and said, “no, Auntie Joe, I just have lots of pimples. Don’t worry, they will hopefully go away soon.” She said, “hopefully.” This sounds mean, but if you knew her, you would know she is the sweetest lady so this didn’t offend me. It just simply pointed out to ME that my face looks awful haha. I don’t think my acne has been this bad since highschool. New interns, get ready!

Speaking of new interns, they come in exactly ONE MONTH! I am so excited to meet them and to see Auntie Mary again! So excited. We get to pick them up in Accra from the airport on Monday, April 30^th, so think of them and pray for safe travels as they are set to leave Canada in a month! 

Home.Sweet.Home

Reasons that I am happy to be back in Asamankese:

-Auntie Jo and Belinda. I was so excited to just hug Auntie Jo. I missed that woman more than you know.

-My own bed

-Belinda’s delicious cooking

-not smelling like a musty old backpack anymore

-being able to condition my hair. It was getting gross!

-the internet

-the lovely and very friendly people in this town

-the mangoes in the tree out front are much bigger than when we left them

-I have more than 4 outfits to choose from to wear

-Seeing my beautiful women again

-teaching

This is home.

This morning we went to the market. We needed to get Petra a new phone and I wanted to see all my lovely Asamankese faces. It was so good to see all the smiling people that say, “Maaaarning!” and “fine, fine. Wo hote sen?” and yell, “Meho ye” back at them. Felt so good to be back.

We stopped by to visit Smart and as we came down the hill, we saw Cynthia...selling from the road side at a table instead of off of her head!!!! So exciting!!! Apparently this spot opened up temporarily, but she can’t stay here without any money. It was just so nice to see her able to sell pineapple, watermelon AND pawpaw at once! So proud of her! I bought a watermelon. Yum.

We had class again today. That was super exciting. I was definitely ready to get back into the swing of things. We have about a month left of classes until the graduation ceremony on April 25^th!! That is just crazy to me! It is going so fast!

I taught my ladies “head and shoulders, knees and toes” today and we sang it out loud with the actions. All the children from the hillside that sit outside the school building were all singing along and doing the actions too. It was cute.

Emelia spelt the word “sit” today!!!!!! I know this doesn’t sound like that much. But last week she was having trouble writing her alphabets and this time she beat the other women to spelling this word out loud and writing it on the board! I was so excited for her! She gave me a high five and I told her to “pat herself on the back” (since we learnt the word “pat” as well...might as well put them into use haha). So exciting. I love seeing progress, it’s wonderful.

Fun fact for the day from Auntie Jo:

The human body, it can’t do anything. God made the human body to make noise. If a bull comes into your room, you will scream and run away. You can’t do anything but you have to make noise. The bull is made to be in the compound or in the woods looking for food. But if it gets into your bedroom you will cry. Eh! The human body is nothing and then it will just end up in the morgue. It is just fresh piece of meat then. Like fresh fish meat.

This conversation continued for 25 long minutes. Interesting woman. Such a funny one she is. 

African Vacation

Okay, so this blog is gonna be pretty long, obviously. I will update you on my past week of crazy vacationing in Ghana. We took everything we needed for the week in one backpack each. Needless to say, we wore a few things more than once and by the end of the week we smelled disgusting. SO good to be home. Ps. I wrote this quickly. I apologize in advance for spelling mistakes. I also didn’t write it very amusingly; there was a lot to write about so I just cranked it out.

Here is my week in a nutshell:

Day 1: Monday

We left Asamankese at about 6am to go to Accra. We needed to get money out and it was the first time using the Visa Card and wanted to make sure that it worked for us, so we decided to hit up Accra so that if things went wrong, we could just go by the bank.

The whole bank system was down. Perfect start. We called the bank and they had us wait off and on about 2-3 hours before things were working again, so we went to Osu and sat in Chicken Inn for about half of that. There are NO spots to just sit in Ghana, and they really don’t like it when you sit on the ground, so Chicken Inn became our new best friend.

Finally, at around 1ish, the bank system was back to normal and we could grab some cash and get going.

Two really friendly guys came and helped us find the buses to Cape Coast and then we were off in the lovely air conditioned van.

Cape Coast in the Background

We got there and stayed at Oasis Beach Resort. It was right on the beach and about 50m from Cape Coast Castle which was pretty sweet. We had our own little hut and it was super cheap too. We shared a double bed and had a little sink and stuff.

The showers were outdoor. That was fun.

Cape Coast Castle was cool. We decided not to do the tour. We could see the outside for free. It was right on the coast and there were huge rocks with giant crashing waves. It was really pretty!

Day 2: Tuesday

We woke up and decided to go to Kakum National Park in the morning. It is this walk into the rainforest and then there are wooden and rope walkways above the trees. It was super cool and really pretty! They said there was potential to see monkeys and bush elephants so I was pretty disappointed that we didn’t...

We met a guy named Ioan (pronounced Johan) who was Swedish and Welsh on the canopy walk. He was really nice and had been traveling around Ghana for 3 months on his own. We decided to go with him to Elmina since we were going to do that at some point anyway. Petra and I needed a break from being just “Petra and I.”

Kakum National Park

So Elmina. It’s this slave castle of sorts...don’t really know, I didn’t listen to the tour to be honest. It was about history. History is boring. The view was sweet though! It was along the coast and beside a huge fishing village. So I just happily went along taking pictures and left the group a bunch of times on my own. Wasn’t really interested in how the actual castle worked...whoops...

Elmina Castle

We had dinner with Ioan that night and then we separated to rest for a bit before meeting up again in the evening to have a drink at our resort. It was SO nice to talk to someone other than just the two of us for once. We spent a good 2 hours talking about what foods we wanted to eat when we got home.

There were about 18 American girls staying near our resort too, so they joined us at night and we talked about what we’ve been doing. It was good to talk out our experiences and share the good stuff and the super frustrating parts of our internships with other people who understand.

Day 3: Wednesday

We got up and met Ioan for breakfast. We had banana pancakes with chocolate and icecream on them. Yum. He was flying back to Sweden that day, so we wanted to say goodbye and thank him for traveling with us a bit.

We wanted to go to Busua Beach that day, so we had to travel to Takoradi from Cape Coast, and from there to Agona and from THERE to Busua. We hate taxi drivers. They suck.

We finally got to Busua at like 5 in the evening. We figured out that day, we had been on trotro’s longer than our flight from Toronto to Germany lasted....blah.

The beach was beautiful though. SO worth it. We stayed at Busua Inn. We had real glass windows. And two single beds with a fan. It was glorious. We didn’t have to share a bed!

There was a big island in the middle of the ocean, not far from the beach and mountains on either side of us. AND IT WAS CLEAN. We could swim. It was awesome.

We had dinner at the African Rainbow Resort down the road on the roof top bar. We ordered burgers and fries. It took 2 hours to make haha. Oh Ghana...

MONKEY!

We got back to the hotel and there was a monkey!!!!! Apparently it had just showed up one time and people started feeding it so it sticks around. Super pumped to see that! It was real friendly and let us pet it.

Day 4: Thursday

Busua Beach

This was just beach day. That’s it. Best ever. We got up and had breakfast at Daniel the Pancake Man and got freshly squeezed juice from Frank the Juice Man, and then literally went swimming all day long. We got super burnt. Which are now fantastic tans again already!

The monkey stole my banana at lunch.

HE STOLE MY BANANA!

We met a family from Colorado. They were visiting their daughter who was here for 2 years with the American Peace Corps. 2 years would be just insane I think. We got something to drink with them and chatted for quite a while. Turns out, the monkey could get in their room! It was hilarious! He actually turned the door knob and pushed it open from the balcony railing. HAHA. I got a picture. They asked me to email it to them. I had to take it, I was the only one on the terrace outside of their room and they kept pushing their door closed as the monkey opened it. I didn’t want them to think I was a freak and that I was opening their door!

Day 5: Friday

We got up and had breakfast. The plan for the day was to go to Beyin so that we could do Nzeluzu the next day. We took a cab back to Agona. A trotro back to Takoradi. A trotro to Beyin. This trotro took literally 2 hours to fill up. We sat in a trotro that wasn’t moving for 2 hours. FUN. Then we drove the 3 hours to the middle of nowhere to Beyin.

We stayed at Beyin Beach Resort. It was beautiful. We stayed in a little hut and they had GRASS! And little tiki huts on the beach. It was super cute.

Beyin Beach

Day 6: Saturday

We had breakfast and then wanted to do the Nzeluzu Stilt Village. It is a whole town that is built on top of a lake. You take a walk to the lake for about 45 minutes and then you take an hour boat ride to the village before looking around there!

We got a ride with this Pastor and his wife and her 2 sisters and shared a boat with them too which was a good time.

Normally you don’t have to walk that far, but since it is the dry season, we had to walk pretty far to get to the lake. It had just rained a bit so we had to wade through mud. That was just digusting. We had to take off our shoes and I thought I was going to get blood suckers or a parasite or something. Yes, I’m a sissy. The boat ride was AWESOME. I felt like I was going down the Amazon River at first through the trees and stuff. And it opened up onto this beautiful, crystal clear lake. It was so nice.

There was a leak in our boat so one of the ladies had to scoop it out with a bucket as we went.

There was a Ghanaian who paddled for us and we didn’t have to help (thank goodness).

We got to the town on stilts. It was small and to the side of the lake. Apparently there are about 550 people living there and they don’t need to be on stilts on the lake. They all have farms about a mile away, so there is no reason for their town to be built on the water where it is. I guess now they just keep it to make a ton of cash off of poor tourists like us.

on the boat to the stilt village

Some of the town wasn’t in water since it is the dry season. It was cool to see the difference between what it looks like dried up and what it looks like on the water. Apparently during the rainy season the water comes above the walkways and they have crocodiles on the “paths/roads?” everyday. There were a lot of naked children running around...not so sure how I would feel about my kids running around with no pants on if there were crocodiles...

Nzeluzu Stilt Village

There was a big group of Ghanaian university students that went the same day as us and it was hilarious watching them on the boats and waiting at the dock because none of them could swim. They were also all taking pictures of Petra and I because we were white instead of the village itself. We are the tourist attraction AT the tourist attraction. Ridiculous and hilarious...

Day 7: Sunday

We got woken up by the owner at the Beyin Beach Resort. He does turtle conservation and some of his baby turtles had hatched and were making their way down the beach to the ocean. So he woke us up to go see. We were the only two people left at the whole resort. That was pretty cool. The turtles were so tiny and cute. I took a video of them making their way to the water.

Baby turtles

We took the trotro to a little town that was right along the border of the Ivory Coast.

Small funny story:

                -okay, so we were as far west as we could be without reaching the Ivory Coast which is pretty dangerous, and apparently they have had problems with people crossing the border illegally so immigration checks people’s passports at a little police brigade close by.

Well...remember a long time ago near the beginning when the police took Charles’ license away to “check” it and and wouldn’t give it back without money? I thought that this was like that. The cop came up to the window and asked if we had our passports. I did, Petra did not. I said no. He asked us why not and I guesssss I was a little bit rude to him thinking that he was just going to charge us money to get them back. He then asked me if I realized that he could detain us until our passports were presented. Still thought he was just a cop. I responded with, “no, I don’t know that.” Whoops. Carolyn is rude and disrespectful. It was then that I noticed a huge office to the side that said “Immigration Office of Ghana.” I had already told him that I didn’t have my passport though, so if I didn’t stick to my story, I would have looked like a fool, so I continued to lie and say I didn’t have it. He threatened to detain us again so we showed him the paper that proved we were volunteers and luckily he let us go...that wouldn’t have been good....stupid Carolyn.

So from there, we took the trotro to Takoradi. That was a 4 hour trip. It would’ve been long, but this lady came on the tro with her two little twin boys, and how in the world could she manage to sit on a tro for 4 hours holding BOTH of them? She couldn’t possibly...so I took one. Didn’t even have to ask; I just reached out my arms to him and she said, “Oh thank you, thank you! You are helping me so much!” ...I got to hold an adorable little black boy for 4 hours. He fell asleep in my arms (most people sleep on the tro’s) and I was just in my glory.

From Takoradi, we took the tro to Cape Coast where we spent our last night before going home. It was ...interesting...

                -we had reserved the same little hut for this night at Oasis Beach Resort when we left on Tuesday, knowing that we would only want to come back this far before resting from Beyin. When we got to Oasis this evening, we could tell that it was pretty busy and apparently, even though we had made reservations, they booked our room out to someone else. Ghana for ya. So they offered us a tent for pretty cheap. We figured it was just our last night, why not. (They gave us a mattress and pillows and stuff anyway). So we get to the tent. It was big and all set up nicely, but it had no fly. So I asked the guy, “what happens if it rains, it will just pour into the tent and we will be soaked...” He told us it wasn’t the rainy season so there is no way it would rain.

20 minutes later it was pouring and all of our stuff was soaked. We raced to grab it all out of the tent as he tried to move our mattress to this tiny tent that DID have a fly. (Why he didn’t put us in there in the first place is beyond me). After trying for about 5 minutes (still in the pouring rain) he finally realized that this mattress wasn’t fitting in this tent and moved us to the floor of a dorm. This dorm had walls that were made of slats with big spaces in them so that the air could flow through them. Or in this case, lots of rain. Inevitably, we were getting soaked all night either way, so we figured we would just go to sleep in the clothes we were wearing and just deal with it. That was a pretty chilly night.

This was our tent in the rain...

We laughed it off though, thankful it was our last night.

Day 8: Monday

HOME TIME! We got up real early to take a tro back to Accra from Cape Coast. We got on, and had a while before it would fill up, and we realized that Petra’s phone was missing. She thought she left it behind at the resort, so she decided to run back to check. No phone. We figured she must have just misplaced it and we would call the resort when we got back.

We got to Accra and got on the tro to Asamankese. We had to wait a whoppin 3 hours for it to fill up! Ridiculous. It seemed long since we just really wanted to go home. There are always these little Chad kids who like to beg from the sides of the trotros while you are waiting and this one guy just KEPT bugging me. He was pinching my arm and hitting me and asking for money. I told him no, but he kept persisting. I did the bigger thing and ignored him for a while. Anyone who knows me knows how hard this was for me. It was hot. I was tired. This child was so annoying that I wanted to bop him in the head. I have a very low tolerance for pestering and my patience is minimal when I am at my best. It was the hardest thing for me to just sit there and pretend he wasn’t hitting me.

Petra was sitting there laughing her head off because I was so frustrated that I was at the point of tears, not because I was sad but because I was so overwhelmed with holding back my temper...haha...oh boy. He finally left.

Petra checked her bag again for her phone just in case, and found the sim card but not her phone. She knew she hadn’t taken her chip out of her phone so we realized that someone had stolen her phone but left her chip behind. She checked her backpack and realized her charger was gone too. AND HER CAMERA. She is pretty disappointed, but we are glad that she hasn’t been taking any pictures and that those aren’t missing. But it really sucks; her phone from home and her expensive camera are both gone.

We got home around 5 in the evening and it felt SOO good to be back. We gave Auntie Joe and Belinda the biggest hugs you could imagine and took nice cold showers. Being home is the best feeling in the world.

Auntie Joe: Advice 101

Today I woke up and did some laundry. I can tell that my hands are getting used to it because my knuckles didn’t bleed near as much as they usually do...progress!

We finished planning our vacation, with Auntie Joe chiming in and giving us lovely advice:

-“make sure you know where you are staying”

-“be careful. One time, this tourist was walking around Cape Coast and these people, they killed him! Yes, he is gone and dead now!” ...thanks Auntie Joe...

-“You will be okay; you are two. If you were one, I would be afraid.”

-“I am not afraid for you because Caro is hard. She is free and crazy. Petra, you are calm and quiet. Caro will take care.” HAHA.

That conversation turned into a 2 hour talk about families and boyfriends and marriage, and different cultural differences related to those things. Again, Auntie Joe had lots of advice to offer:

-she said I needed to find a boyfriend when I got home because Petra has one and I don’t.

-she was astonished to find out that my dad was younger than my mom by 3 years. She said marrying in your own age group even is bad. She won’t allow it for her children. She said the man must be older because men get weak when they grow old (hehe) and the woman must be young and strong and able to take good care of him and the house and the kids. Mom and Dad, your whole marriage is wrong...

-She also thought it was hilarious that my mom is taller than my dad. (I showed her family pictures). She thinks you two are just crazy.

-She said no man should bring a girlfriend back home to meet his parents while he is still in school. You should not be that serious until he can support her and a lot of children; he MUST “stand firm on his feet.” We told her that she should come and tell that to everyone at Redeemer and maybe help to slow down the amount of people getting married while still in school?

-She said you should check up on their history through talking to everyone they know. She says some men have short tempers and some men have long tempers. You need to know who you are marrying.

-She said you shouldn’t have lots of kids if you can’t take care of them all, but if you can, have lots. One of them is bound to go and “bring forth” (get pregnant) early and not go to school. Then they will have to stay home and help and there will always be someone there to welcome the other children if the parents are dead. She says that if their parents are dead and there is no one at home to make you happy, you will feel sad and then you will cry. Her words; not mine. She says that if you have 10 kids, you will get a doctor, a mechanic, a nurse, a teacher, an air hostess, one that doesn’t do anything with their life and they will all be happy and famous. Oh Auntie Joe, how I love our conversations.

-She said women must be good at cooking if they want to be good wives.

This trip to Africa has made me realize how bad of a wife and mother I am going to be: I suck at cooking, I hate cleaning and hardly make an effort to do it, and I despise doing laundry. Yup, world’s best housewife right there. I need to find me a cooking and cleaning kinda man!

This afternoon, it poured. Literally poured rain. I honestly, without exaggerating, thought we were having a tornado. My windows were close to breaking from the wind, the trees were bent over to a scary angle and there was a dust storm before the rains came that made the whole sky brown. Kinda freaky. Petra napped through the whole thing.

Belinda made us this pudding cake thing today. It was delicious. Petra didn’t care for it so she didn’t eat very much. I downed 3 pieces before Belinda left the room. Whoops. We didn’t realize that that was our supper for the night...no wonder we are getting fat...

It is the one year anniversary of Auntie Joe’s late husband’s niece’s death today. Yup. Funerals are a big deal here. The son-in-law of this woman who died a year ago is a pastor, and he is staying in our house for the night. They had a celebration of her life today and Auntie Joe and Belinda are distantly related so they went to the cemetery and the family gathering.

When he got back, he chatted with us for the better part of the evening. His English is really good. He was excited to inform me that the lady who had passed away, her name is Caroline (or Caro) and was VERY excited to tell me that I was her name sake. At least he can remember and pronounce my name...

He was reading an English Ghanaian newspaper and the foreign news page showed a European 19 year old white girl with her 97 plastic dolls. They are all hand crafted and have real human hair. They are replacement children since she can’t have kids. Weird.

He said, and I quote, “look at this article. You people are very strange.” HAHA. Not alllll white people do things like that...and not all white people are European. Especially not the ones who already told you that they are from Canada...

haha

We leave for vacation tomorrow after class, or Monday morning really early. Haven’t decided yet. We suck at getting going, so it’ll most likely be Monday morning.

We are going to the Presby Church tomorrow with Auntie Joe and this Reverend for the final celebration of Caro’s 1 year anniversary and then I teach business class in the afternoon.

After that, Petra and I will be offline for a week. We aren’t taking laptops with us. The day we get back will mark our 2^nd month being in Ghana! Crazy!!

BUH BYE!! 

And I'll Stand, with Arms High and Heart Abandoned; In Awe, of the One who made it All.

This morning I grabbed my Bible and my devotional and my journal and took a walk. Sometimes it can be so hard amongst the busyness of the day to just sit and spend time in personal devotion. I have written so many blogs about all that I have done to fill my days here, but I want to share some of the struggles that I go through while I am here as well.

This is what I wrote in my journal this morning:

“

I am in Africa. I am sitting all alone in the stillness of the morning before the heat of the sun comes above the beautiful mountains. As I look around me, I have palm trees, I have hundreds of butterflies floating around, I see the haze of the morning slowly lift above the hillside in the distance. How can I say that I can see all of this from where I am sitting and not be in awe of the one who made it all?

Because I am a lukewarm Christian, that’s why.

This morning my devotional was about “serving leftovers to a Holy God.” As I read it for the first time, it scared the crap out of me. God doesn’t want a lukewarm believer. But as I read it a second and third time, I realize that this is my opportunity to grow.

God wants us all or nothing. The thought of a person calling themselves a “Christian” without being a devoted follower of Christ is crazy.

Many times I feel like I am willing to make changes in my life if I think it will affect my salvation. I go through periods of spiritual highs where I feel God telling me to pull it together and do what He is calling me to do, and then there are all the other days when I find it hard or pointless or selfishly, a waste of time to do devotions or pray or spend time with God.

Sadly, these days come more often than those where I feel overwhelmed by God’s love.

That’s not how I want it to be.

There are struggles that everyone has; there are struggles that I have. Money, sex, gossip, relationships, lies. As I sit back and think about the things that give me temporary love and temporary happiness, I realize that they are nothing. I am nothing without God. All or nothing.

“In the midst of our failed attempts at loving Jesus, His grace covers us.”

That is what keeps me going. It’s super hard. I cannot do it alone. I see other people being true to who they are. I see other people demonstrating that they are Christians without shame. I see other people who have a stronger relationship with God than I do. I will never be perfect, but the truth that God’s grace is enough to help us through our struggles is enough to keep me going.

“It is easy to fill ourselves up with other things and then give God whatever is left.”

The hardest part about this is the reality that I do it consciously. I know that I don’t give Him enough; in time, in prayer, in offering. I give Him what is left so that I will feel like I have done my part. But this isn’t enough. “God is holy. In heaven exists a Being who decides whether or not I take another breath. This holy God deserves excellence, the very best I have.” ...then why is it so hard?

As I sit back and reflect on life and specifically on this trip and my time in Africa, there are times when I am having the time of my life. I love it here. These times are usually in the busiest times.

Then, in the quiet, and in the times when there isn’t anything going on, it’s easy to wonder why I am here.

Petra and I found a quote in the cabinet in our house from Melissa, (thank you Mel!) that says, “The place you are in, needs YOU today.” –Katherine Logan.

God’s definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.

1 Corinthians 13:2-3, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

“According to God, we are here to love. Not much else really matters.”

If, in the quietness of this amazing opportunity, I can simply love these women that I have been called to teach, that is enough for me. If I can care about them, work for their good instead of my own, and pray for them; that is enough.

”

I did not write this to pour my faults out on you, but I need your prayers. I need your encouragement and love. Pray that I would seek God in the stillness of this beautiful country and love these beautiful women of God so that I can make, if but a small difference in their lives. 

"Obruni! Obruni! Obruni!"

So today Petra and I had to go and get our visa’s extended. For some reason, when you apply for a 3 month visa in Canada, it is really only good for 2 months. Seems silly and pointless to me, but that’s how it is.

So, we got up and went to go and get our passport sized pictures taken at the local “foto” shop. We got to pick whether we wanted a white background or red background. Choices, choices. I picked white. Turns out the girls didn’t think that suited me and decided to switch to red. This involved one of them holding a red sheet behind my head…Maybe THAT’S why they need 5 employees?

One of the girls told me that I had beautiful hair and said that I should take her to Canada so that she could get some like that…I told her that this was my natural hair and that I wasn’t about to cut it off of my head to give to her. She was baffled that hair could grow like this on our heads. Haha.

We got our mug shots and made our way to the trotro station to meet Kujo. He was taking us so that we didn’t get jipped and pay more than we needed to in order to extend the visa’s, and show us how to get there. Thank you Kujo!

We took the trotro to Koferidua and walked to the Immigration Office. It was kind of cool walking through a new town and seeing different places and different people than Asamankese; they have a different market and I am a big observer and people watcher, so new things are always fun for me.

We got to the office and filled out our forms and such, and then found out that “the boss” wasn’t in yet; he hadn’t showed up to work yet today and they didn’t know what time he would be in. The Ghana life. They guaranteed that he would be though, so we exchanged numbers and we went to go walk around Koferidua for a while…

We went to the Presby school across the street from the Immigration office first. Kujo is a teacher in the Asamankese Presby Primary School, so we went to say hi and look around. There were children in adorable blue uniforms everywhere. In Ghana, each school has their own uniform and everyone wears them with pride.

Presby School Visit

My favourite was going to the preschoolers who all shouted “Obruni! Obruni! Obruni!” in a chant to us as we got closer to the classroom, and filed out of the class just to see us and shake our hands.

Preschool Children at the Presby School

Nursery School Naptime!

Second favourite was the nursery school. Apparently children as young as 3 months old are put in there so that their mother’s can go back to work. It was nap time when we got there and they were all just sleeping on the floor. It was hilarious and super cute! I think I am developing a super soft spot for these adorable dark skinned little children. I wanna take a few home with me.

After that, we decided to walk to the bead market. On Thursday’s in Koferidua, they have a bead and craft market. We were told it was pretty close by, so we decided to walk there. It was 40 degrees today before humidity. The walk was about 40 mins uphill. I think it is fair to say that Petra and I were both disgusting once we reached the market…we looked up and down a few aisles and then found Fanmilk and sat down. Kujo didn’t complain and joined us. Honestly, we were soaked. It was gross. And as if I am not dark enough, I got even more tanned today from just walking around. I almost fit in here.

We passed by a guy from America today. He called us an “obruni” as a joke. Maybe I was just overtired, but I enjoyed it and thought it was cute of him.

The trotro ride home was cooking hot. And very bumpy. The road between Suhum and Asamankese (the whole last hour of the ride) is all under construction and unpaved. It is awful for driving. It is super hard on your body and just adds to the exhaustion. I am pretty sure I saw our driver nod off a couple times as we were driving too…surprisingly, this didn’t even worry me. I think I am convinced that IF I am to die in Africa, it will be in a trotro accident. Or maybe Malaria due to the lack of pills…

We got home and Auntie Joe saw us and just started laughing. I was so sweaty that my flipflops just kept slipping off my feet so I took them off as I made my way across the lawn. (Ghanaians think it is the strangest thing when I wear bare feet outside…that is what I do when it is warm outside…).Petra and I both looked exhausted so she told us to go inside and rest. I yelled back that it better rain tonight and she said she would pray hard. It poured 10 minutes later. Oh Auntie Joe, you are wonderful.

HALFWAY POINT IS TODAY!

pawpaw adventures

My apologies in advance for spelling errors, I cranked this out real quickly.

Yesterday we went to the pawpaw farm with Cynthia. On Sunday, in business class, we talked about different expenses involved in our businesses and Cynthia described the transportation costs involved in going to buy pawpaw from the farm every Monday and Wednesday.

I decided that I needed to experience this and see how this all worked for myself.

Cynthia was going to meet us at the trotro station at 7am. I was a little hesitant about being on time since I knew that if Cynthia was late we would have to wait for her in the station and not at home. Cynthia is ALWAYS late.

She got there at 7:45am, so we spent 45mins waiting for her with every male in that trotro station yelling, “Obruni! Where you go?” (Except when they say it, it’s a very fast and blurred version of that phrase).

We took a trotro to Nsawam. From there we took a taxi to Kota Road where we got out and had to walk to the farm. The trotro ride was a little over an hour, so not too far at all. We walked about another hour to the farm through a little village down a little dirt path. It was long and hot, but it was beautiful!

We were in Africa’s “country.” There was long grass, trees, mountains in the distance; you could see for forever and it was breathtaking.

Beautiful Ghana

We started to get closer to the pawpaw farm and we walked through pineapple fields. I never really thought about how pineapples were grown before, but they grow on low plants, just above the ground in large fields with spike leaves all around them. It’s actually really cool!

Pineapple Plants

We past the passion fruit bushes that this farmer also grows (they use this to make real fruit juice here) and then finally got to the pawpaw trees.

There were SO many!

Pawpaw

Apparently once planted, a pawpaw tree can yield fruit within 8 months. And it grows fruit at 3 different heights along the trunk (with leaves above for protection) so that you always have riped fruit to pluck.

Pawpaw (said like popo by the way...a few people have been asking me), tastes kind of like a plain melon. They are orange on the inside, green on the outside and have little black seeds that you don’t eat.

The farmer went around and picked 3 crates of them for Cynthia, which another lady carried around n her head.

**Literally everyone carries stuff on their heads here, they think it is stupid to carry things with their hands, that is not what hands and arms are made of. Uncle Ernest said that that’s what heads were made for, he says that they aren’t good for anything else...

Cynthia walking with her baskets to the farm. Pawpaw trees in the background

While they plucked the pawpaw, Cynthia and I got a chance to talk a lot about herself, her business, her dreams of expanding and ever her dreams of owning land someday to grow her own pawpaw. She also talked about how land was available here as long as you had the money to pay for it. GH₵ 2000 will get you 5 acres far away from the cities, and it gets more pricey as you get closer to town. It is SO much less expensive here! I almost wish that I could go and buy her a couple of acres of land!

Cynthia and I

The farmer gave Petra and I a bag of pawpaw for free to take home and eat which was really nice of him. We just have so many that I don’t know if we can eat them all before they get too ripe. Like actually too many. He filled the bag so full, they were too heavy to carry to the roadside and the bag broke. The crunchy ones are much better than the soft ones, so we have to eat them quickly.

To go back, 3 men that worked on the farm had to help her carry the pawpaw back to the roadside. (The exporter was gone, so we couldn’t use his truck). They had the pawpaw on their heads for that hour long hike!

We saw a huge snake, it was a python and it was on the path in front of us as we walked (yes, alive). My camera battery died just as I went to snap it though so I couldn’t get a picture which was disappointing.

We then took trotro’s home to Asamankese where carriers were waiting to carry the pawpaw to her little spot to store her product. It was such an interesting day and I definitely learned a lot. And Cynthia used her little book that I gave her to RECORD EVERYTHING! YAY!

It was a great day.

Today in class my level one ladies reviewed the human body and learned the difference between “these are my” and “this is my” since we have 2 eyes, 2 arms, 2 breasts, but one nose, one head, etc. We started learning 3 letter words and they are getting much better at sounding out words to spell them on their own!

One of our three letter words was “fat” and one of the ladies came up to me at the end and said, “Caro, you were not fat when you got here, but you are getting fat.” A sure sign that Belinda has been feeding us well...that lady’s name is Comfort of all things, ironic isn’t it?

This morning before Petra woke up, I went outside to jump rope for a while. Auntie Joe came out to chat and watch me, I enjoy our morning talks when it’s cool enough outside to concentrate on listening. She said she used to jump rope but now she “feels too heavy.” Then she pretended to be skipping rope but without an actual rope; it was really cute. I am really going to miss Auntie Joe. She is my momma away from home and I love when she giggles and says, “Oh Caro!” and then grabs my hand and kisses my cheek. Such a sweet and stubborn lady, I love it.

The power just came back on after 4 hours. Fans went with it. It is a low of 27 tonight. A LOW of 27. Needless to say I am sweating like crazy. Goodnight!

I am so proud of these women!

This morning we went to the CAC Church in town. (Christ Apostolic Church). A lot of the women that are in our class attend there and have been inviting us for a while, so we figured we should check it out. I am so glad that we did.

Mercy was going to come and show us where the church was and bring us there. Church started at 9, so at about quarter to 9, Petra and I were ready and waiting. She got to Auntie Joe’s house around 9:45 and we got to the church at around 10. Nothing like being casually late...

The church was TINY. And packed full. They had tents set up outside the building so that people could sit there since more than half the congregation didn’t fit into the church.

They were dedicating all the children in the church this morning, so they lined up and the pastor prayed over each one and sprinkled water on their heads. I swear every child in Asamankese was there...there were SO many!

Immediately after getting there, I started spotting familiar faces. More than half of my level one ladies go to this church; more than I even knew about before going there! It definitely made me feel more welcome seeing the beautiful faces of the students that I am starting to really love.

As usual, with the offering is dance time. Usually we can get by by just clapping our hands and kind of moving on the spot...not here. The pastor knew English and had us come to the front with everyone else and dance in the circle for each offering. I cannot dance. Wow. Generally, if you move your body to the music and have a huge goofy smile on your face, they accept you. I am good at goofy smiles.

Class this afternoon was fantastic. I think I made the most progress today than in any class that I have had so far. I say this because both of the ladies did fantastic!

There is a distinct difference in the learning abilities between the two women in my class; Cynthia knows quite a lot and is learning extremely fast, while Anita still struggles with reading and writing English at times. So it can be difficult for them to be in the same class sometimes when Cynthia catches on a bit more quickly.

My students and I; Cynthia, myself, and Anita. 

Today was not the case, I am SO proud of both of them! We started learning about Finances last week and I introduced to them their little books to keep records of everything. This seemed to be harder for them to start doing than I had thought because neither of them had done it this week.

I introduced making budgets this week, and we walked through what expenses needed to be recorded and figured out the values of each of the expenses for each individual woman; costs of their product, transportation costs, packaging, etc.

Seeing each of their own costs laid out in front of them helped a lot and it gave me a really good idea of how much they spend each week, and on what they spend it.

I bought calculators in Canada before I left and brought them with me, so today I gave each woman a calculator of their own as a gift. I am hoping that this will be incentive for them to keep tabs of their money and they were SO happy to get them.

Cynthia has been AMAZING to teach; she is such a strong woman and is such a blessing to have around. She got to class about a half hour before Anita did today, and we just sat down and talked about her dreams of expanding and having her own personal shop to sell at so that she can sell more than one kind of fruit at a time and not have to walk around with fruit on her head.  

She talked to me about loans and how the banks work around here, she talked to me about how hard it can be to pay the loans back and how much the interest charges usually are.

Talking to her is giving me so many ideas of how we can help her and I am really excited about her progress and the future that she has! She will do SO many great things.

Mel, if you are reading this, we showed her your blog post about her and she loved it! She replied through Petra’s blog to comment on your post. I honestly had tears in my eyes as I watched her reaction as she read it. So, thank you for that!

A week from today is our last day before our week off. Petra and I spent the evening planning that, which was super exciting. Time to see Africa!

Potatoes...OH BABY.

Today I don’t feel like blogging. So I am going to tell you about the most exciting part of my day, and that’s it. Actually, scratch that. It’s the most bestest part of my entire trip so far.

It is two-fold:

1)      Belinda made us each a big plate of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy. Anyone who knows me well knows that there is absolutely no word out there to describe my love for potatoes. They should also know the unhealthy amount that I love to pile gravy on top of everything on my plate. Mmm.

2)      I found out that Petra doesn’t like gravy; I got two full plates of this deliciousness in my mouth.

Best Ever. 

We's Gettin Fat.

This morning we were visited, bright and early, by Patience. She came into our bedroom and greeted us and laughed as we were getting ready for the day.

We are hanging around Asamankese this weekend, so we just had a really chill day. We went to town a couple times, and just spent some time with Auntie Joe.

I was sitting outside doing some lesson planning this morning and I can’t help but notice how often that Enoch plays Akon on his speakers. There is a guesthouse right beside Auntie Joe’s house and they are ALWAYS blasting music in English which is nice. It’s just kinda funny that it either seems to be some form of Christian Praise and Worship or Akon and Rihanna...It is also worth noting how I would never listen to either of those artists back home, but when I am here I LOVE hearing it play.

When I do work outside, I usually sit on the steps that lead up to Auntie Joe’s balcony. The lizards love to sit on there, and they generally sleep there during the night because the stone stays really warm for longer than the ground does. This morning there were quite a few sitting up there and they always scatter when I walk up. I had never noticed before today, but they don’t scamper up the steps, they hop from one step to the other. If there are 8 steps, they take 8 jumps and they are at the top. It’s really funny.

Speaking of lots of lizards, Yaa was drying out more maize today; she spreads them out on a blanket in the sun to dry so that later they can strip the kernels and use them for banku and kenkey and dishes like that. They can also replant the cobs.

Auntie Joe asked if we had corn in Canada and if I wanted to eat some of that corn. I lived on a farm last summer; I now know the difference between cow corn and sweet corn and that was NOT sweet corn she was offering me. This reminded me of how much I miss eating frozen corn or even corn from a can. Mmm.

Petra and I bought skipping ropes in the market today; we figured we needed the exercise and we both don’t like going for a run, so we are making our own form of exercise. Ironically enough when we returned from the market, and I will add the detail that we walk 25 mins there and 25 mins back, uphill both ways, Auntie Joe greeted us and said, “oh wow, you girls have been putting on lots of weight! That is so nice!” ...Thanks Auntie Joe... I guess the skipping ropes will be coming out often?


When we were walking through a back alley in the market today, there were two guys peeing into the water at the same time. We had to walk behind them and they both called to us asking us to wait and shake their hands to greet them. I DON'T THINK SO!

Well, this weekend marks the end of week 6; after next week we will be halfway already! Time is just flying by. It is kind of funny that when we left, both Petra and I thought we would be gone for 90 days and didn’t realize until we were on our way that we are really gone for 100 days. Neither of us have enough Malaria Pills. Perfect. Cross your fingers that we come home healthy!!